Flight and Fright
by LJunattainable
Summary: Set sometime in season 5. Castiel is injured and unconscious. Dean, Sam and Bobby have to look after him, which is difficult as he keeps disappearing on them. Available on AO3.


Gabriel leant over his little brother, curious "well, well. What have we here?" he murmured to himself, his eyes roaming Castiel's recently manifested body lying half on and half off the rug Gabriel had 'borrowed' from a Persian Prince 1000 or so years ago. Gabriel wasn't worried too much about the blood Castiel was leaking onto the rug. He could clean it up later.

Gabriel reached out with his grace to touch his brother, seeing what eyes alone couldn't see. "Interesting. You're not where you should be, are you?" He stood back up with a small smile twitching on his face. He debated helping. He was fond of Castiel really, despite causing him grief whenever he could. He decided to help, because it might be fun, and first things first, Castiel would probably like to know what was going on when he woke up. Assuming he did wake up of course. Gabriel gave it some thought and unfurled a small part of his wing and with a wince, plucked a small, black, downy feather, placing it in Cass's hand and wrapping Cass's fingers round it.

When Castiel disappeared as suddenly as he arrived, Gabriel shrugged. It was someone else's problem now.

"What the hell!" Bobby started at his desk, eyes lifting from the book he was reading, at the sudden appearance of the thrashing angel on his bed across the room.

He yelled upstairs for Sam and Dean while he wheeled himself around the desk to the bedside. Castiel was in T-shirts and sweatpants, fighting unseen opponents in his unconsciousness. Bobby tried to hold Castiel's wrists to stop him hurting himself or Bobby. He got one but couldn't reach far enough across Cass's body for the second and yelled again for Sam and Dean. Where the hell were they!

Bobby heard the thump of feet landing as Dean jumped the bottom half of the staircase and came through into the room at a run, stopping up short at the sight of Bobby trying to hold on to an animated Castiel on the bed.

Bobby turned, his arms still directed towards the bed trying to hold back Castiel's flailing limbs. "What are y' waiting for! Give me a hand."

At Bobby's instruction, Dean came out of his shocked stupor and in a couple of long strides reached the bed. He leant over Cass, grabbed his wrists and held them still above his head. Cass continued to arch his body and twist from side to side in Dean's grasp, his face screwed up in some unidentified anguish as his head twisted first one way then the other on the pillow. When Sam came into the room a moment later, Dean yelled for him to come and help and Sam grabbed Cass at the hips, and leant on his legs to hold him still.

Bobby had got out of the way pretty quick and disappeared into the kitchen, now returning with a syringe filled with a clear liquid.

"I don't know if this will work on him, so here goes nothin'" and the syringe was stabbed into the muscle of Cass's thigh.

"How fast?" Dean asked breathlessly feeling like he was riding a bucking bronco.

"How the hell should I know? On a human, maybe 2 minutes. On an angel? Hell I don't know if it'll work at all."

But it seemed it would. Gradually Cass's movements became less violent, then less agitated until he became merely restless. Dean and Sam let go of the angel and stepped away slowly, half expecting him to start up again without them sitting on him, but Cass stayed still.

Dean now got a chance to take stock. "Is that my T-shirt?" He looked closer "and my sweatpants! What the hell?" Dean looked Cass over. His normally unkempt hair was worse than usual standing up in sweaty spikes, his face looked fevered, his T-shirt, Dean's T-shirt, showed sweat under the arms and on the chest, and Cass had no shoes and socks on. The T-shirt was a little rucked up at the waist from Cass's thrashing and Sam spotted something white and red against the skin. He lifted the hem of the T-shirt up to Cass's chest and they all stared at the dressing covering most of Cass's side, some blood seeping through leaving a splash of red on the white.

They looked at each other, not sure where to start. So many questions. Why was Cass wearing Dean's clothes? Who had bandaged the angel? What the hell had happened in the first place?

"Well..." Sam started just as Castiel disappeared.

They didn't know what had just happened but they knew they had to find him.

Five hours later, prayers had gone unanswered and they were no closer to finding Cass. Their concern for his well-being had grown to desperate and they had a half dozen books scattered around on Angel Lore, looking for something that would summon an unconscious and injured angel.

A small flutter from the kitchen announced that maybe they wouldn't have to. Expecting that Cass had recovered enough to make the journey to Bobby's on his own steam, and with a bunch of questions that needed answering, Sam and Dean hightailed it into the kitchen with Bobby close behind.

Their hopes of Cass's recovery were short-lived. Cass lay on the kitchen floor, in his regular trenchcoat and suit, completely unconscious, a puddle of blood spreading slowly across the linoleum.

"Damn, I liked that T-shirt" Dean muttered, hiding his concern, as he always did, in jokes and throwaway remarks. He and Sam lifted the angel, Dean picking up Cass's feet as Sam reached under his arms. They were quick but careful, not sure what was going on or where he was injured, and carried him to lay him on the bed in Bobby's sitting room.

No sooner had they laid him down on the bed than he convulsed suddenly, screwed his face up in pain, and disappeared.

"Balls. Not again." Bobby's heartfelt sentiment said it all.

But within less than a minute, Cass was back, in the same place, prone on the bed. Sam was the first to spot the small black feather gripped in Cass's hand that he was fairly sure hadn't been there before. He raised an eyebrow at Dean and Bobby.

Dean shook his head "I got nothing".

Sam looked at Bobby, but Bobby just shook his head looking perplexed "me neither".

Hoping that Cass would stay long enough for them to help this time, they checked him over. Holding a dressing in place to stop the bleeding from an obvious small, but deep, injury high on his side they removed the blood-soaked trenchcoat, suit, shirt and tie to check for other injuries, but there seemed to be none.

Sam stitched and dressed Cass's wound up properly. He didn't think it was fatal but he wasn't sure why Cass wasn't awake. The only thing he could think of that would cause this was an angel blade, which meant one of Cass's family had attacked him. As they had declared him an outcast and were actively hunting him, it was also the most likely. Dean, Sam and Bobby didn't know much about how to heal angel blade wounds but could at least try and fix the physical symptoms that they could see. Then they'd just have to pray.

Sam stepped back from the bed. "That's all we can do for now."

"We should get him some clothes" Bobby pointed out. "I don't know if he feels the cold but it's not exactly summer and he looks damn cold lying there in just his boxers".

Dean grumbled his way upstairs. He'd already lost his favorite T-shirt and his only pair of sweatpants that he had at Bobby's. Wherever Cass had decided to leave them, he wondered if he'd get them back when Cass was better.

When Dean came back downstairs, Bobby was sorting out blankets as well, but the look on Dean's face made him stop what he was doing.

"What's up, boy?"

Sam had been fussing around Cass, checking his temperature and the dressing, and looked up at Bobby's question.

Dean held in his hands a T-shirt and sweats, staring at them as if they weren't really there. And as far as his mind could process they shouldn't be there.

"This is the exact same T-shirt Cass was wearing earlier, and these are the exact same sweatpants." He looked from the clothes to Bobby and across to Sam.

Sam was the first to break the silence "I got nothin'" and Bobby shook his head again.

Dean was shrugging and approaching the bed with the clothes, when Cass arched his back, gave a barely audible moan, and disappeared.

The creature circled the mostly naked human. It could smell the blood and its nostrils flared and its long tongue licked round its huge teeth, saliva dripping from its mouth in anticipation.

It was wary. Humans were dangerous, but this one was injured and still. It was very hungry. It hadn't eaten for days. It warily approached and sniffed, and as there was still no movement, its jaws opened and bit into Cass's side. As Cass disappeared, the creature's jaws slammed shut together on empty space leaving it nothing but a taste of blood to feast on.

Again, Cass had been gone less than a minute when he reappeared on Bobby's bed.

"Crap" exclaimed Dean, rushing to hold a towel against the ripped wound in Cass's side, that showed ribs and torn flesh. Sam remobilized his first aid kit and removed Dean's hand from Cass to assess the damage.

"This looks like teeth marks. Some kind of large animal". He looked up at the others "this is bad. We need to work out what the hell's going on".

"Come on" Bobby dragged Dean off to the books and let Sam get on with doing what he could to repair the new injury.

Sam got Cass cleaned, disinfected, stitched and dressed, and they clothed him in Dean's T-shirt and sweats. It had been nearly two hours now and they were relieved he hadn't disappeared again, but his condition was deteriorating, not improving. The animal bite had most likely been infected and Cass's temperature was up in a fever. They were learning all manner of new things about Castiel's vulnerability now he was cut off from heaven, and they weren't liking any of it.

Dean, Sam and Bobby moved quietly round the house, whispering rather than talking, so as not to disturb the angel more than they could help, though there was no indication that he could hear them. So far they'd found nothing which helped explain Cass's disappearing act. Sam and Bobby kept at the research, while Dean sat with the angel. Sitting with sick and injured people wasn't one of his strengths but Sam and Bobby were better at the research and so Dean sat with Cass. And if Sam and Bobby noticed Dean's comforting hand laid on Cass's arm, and the gentle way he spoke to calm him in his increasingly restless sleep, they wisely chose to ignore it.

As the evening drew on, Cass became more and more agitated and started thrashing around in the bed. Dean tried to calm his movements, gripping his wrists to hold his arms still, wedging himself against Cass's body to prevent Cass throwing himself around too much, when it struck Dean that this was all awfully familiar.

He called across to the others and when they looked at Cass, in Dean's clothes, thrashing in sickness, a dressing covering almost his entire left side, they got it too, and as if on cue, Cass disappeared.

This time when Cass came back they were prepared. Cass was quiet and drugged and now they knew why.

"He's moving through time, or space, or both maybe, flying off to different places, but not of his own will" Bobby whispered.

Sam agreed "we have to stop him before he lands somewhere that injures him again, or god forbid, actually kills him."

"There are sigils that stop angels entering places, aren't there?" asked Dean. "Can't we use them to keep Cass in?"

"I don't know. We've got some holy oil, of course."

"Yeah, we have, but not enough to keep him safe until he recovers."

After some debate they settled on the sigils as the only real option they had, and if it worked, great. If it didn't? Well, if it didn't, it was fingers crossed and hope for the best until Cass was better.

They heard a small whimper from across the room and when they turned back to the bed, Cass was gone.

It was cold in the snow. Dry, freezing snow that enveloped Cass in his T-shirt, sweatpants, and bare feet. The wind howled, whipping up the surface and blowing sharp icy flakes across Cass's face. At first his fever-ridden body lapped up the cold comfort, but soon the icy fingers of the relentless cold permeated Cass's weakened body and he slipped deeper into unconsciousness, frostbite starting to nibble at his fingers and toes.

They were waiting for him. He'd never been gone for long it seemed to them, though how long it was for Cass they couldn't tell. Sure enough, less than a minute after he disappeared, Cass reappeared on the bed.

"Oh, Crap" Bobby looked at the condition of the angel, blue skinned, discolored tinges on his fingers and toes, breathing almost non-existent, much deeper into unconsciousness than he had been when he left.

Dean was the first to react. He needed to be doing something. "Blankets. Bobby, have you got an electric blanket? No, ok, warm water, warm towels. Sam, light the fire. Bobby, make some hot tea." He paused. He knew what the best thing to do now was. He just didn't like it. Sighing loudly, he looked at Sam and Bobby "if you two say anything about this to anyone, even each other, you will be dead before morning" and glaring at them to emphasize his point, he climbed onto the bed beside Cass and pulled Cass's smaller cold body against him and wrapped his arms around Cass holding him close and giving him heat. Bobby, with not so much as a smile, pulled a blanket over them to direct the warmth inwards, and Dean nodded his appreciation.

When Dean felt Cass generating his own heat again, he left the bed, throwing extra blankets and towels warmed by the fire over him.

Bobby was getting some much-needed sleep hunched over his desk on the other side of the room so Dean spoke quietly "What's the frostbite like?" he turned to Sam.

"I think it'll be ok. He was lucky."

"It's been a couple of hours. Do you think the Sigils are working?"

Sam ran his fingers over his face "to be honest, I guess we'll only know for sure if they aren't. And we'll only know that if Cass disappears again."

Dean grunted in understanding, but he didn't like it. He looked across to Cass lying quietly on the bed "what about the other stuff. Is he getting any better?"

"Hell, Dean. I don't know. I'm not a doctor. What do you expect me to say?"

"Yeah, sorry man. I just …" Dean trailed off. What did he just, he wondered. He just didn't want to lose another friend, family almost. He just didn't want to see his normally indestructible angel ally hurt and vulnerable and scarily destructible.

Sam broke into his thoughts "I'm sorry, Dean. Look, he's quiet and the fever seems to have gone. That's got to be a good thing right?"

"Yeah, Sammy. That's a very good thing. Thanks."

Cass fidgeted on the bed, his eyes rolled under his eyelids and a pained groan escaped his lips as he disappeared.

At least they knew now that the sigils didn't work. There was nothing Dean and Sam could do but wait to see what they got back.

What they got back was thankfully no worse than what had left, in fact it looked like Cass had been well cared for wherever he had been. He was warm, and his face was relaxed. The dressing on his side had been changed for a clean one. But yet again he had something in his hand, his fingers curled around gripping it tight.

Sam uncurled Cass's fingers and extracted a piece of paper. The paper was just a plain sheet of lined paper, A4 sized and had sketches and writing covering both sides. In Bobby's handwriting. Dean grabbed the paper and went over to where Bobby still slept by the desk. Dean put his hand on the older hunter's shoulder and gently shook him awake.

Years of hunting had Bobby awake instantly and Dean passed him the paper. Bobby turned it over and back in his hand "where'd you get this?"

Dean nodded across at Cass "while you were asleep he did a little jaunt. That was in his hand when he came back."

"This is my hand-writing" Bobby weighed up the implications.

"We know. What does it mean? Is it going to help us with Cass?"

Bobby sat and read the note.

"Bobby?" Dean asked impatiently.

"What? Shut up and sit. It won't go any faster with you hoverin' and interruptin'".

Bobby seemed to take an interminably long time reading the note, re-reading parts, looking up references in books. 30 minutes later he hissed "yes!" loudly with smug satisfaction.

Dean stopped pacing "yes?"

"Yes, it is going to help us with Cass. This is from future me". Bobby started throwing instructions at them to pull ingredients together for a ritual while he fished out the bowls and candles. He pointed to one part of the piece of paper he had, and giving Dean a small bowl of what looked like soot, directed him to Cass. "Go put that mark on Cass's forehead with this". Sam was given a book and white chalk to draw a complicated symbol on the floor by Cass's bed. When Bobby pronounced himself satisfied, they began.

Candles lit, bowl filled with the necessary mixture, Bobby began reading from a book on the desk. He threw another ingredient into the bowl. A small spark escaped, and he continued reading. Another ingredient and another small spark escaped. He kept reading. The symbol on Cass's forehead began to glow faintly. Bobby kept going adding ingredients and reading the ritual. With the final ingredient, and final line from the ritual, the contents of the bowl ignited and burnt with an intense light, and the symbol on Cass's forehead glowed pure white with a light, not unlike his grace.

Dean was worried then. The only time he'd seen angel grace leaving the vessel it hadn't been for a good reason. "Bobby, what's happening? Are you sure about this?"

Bobby was as sure as he could be, and admittedly that wasn't one-hundred percent, but he kept the doubt from his face and voice. "It's ok, Dean. Just wait."

They waited, but nothing obvious happened, except the light in the bowl stuttered and went out, and the same for the light on Cass's forehead, leaving the original sooty symbol against the pale skin.

"Well that was an anti-climax" Dean muttered, disgusted. He'd put his faith in that ritual, given that Bobby, sort of, had come up with it.

"Give it time, Dean" Sam sat in one of the chairs near the bed, looking to Cass for some acknowledgement of change also, but unwilling to admit his disappointment that there was none.

"Dean".

Dean woke with a jerk from his slumber, sitting on a cushion on the floor, his back leaning against the side of the bed, his head resting on his knees. He wasn't sure he'd heard anything really or if it was just a dream.

"Dean".

Dean swung round to face the bed. Cass's face was only a foot away from his and his eyes were open. "Thank god". Dean rolled round on his knees and standing up, sat on the edge of the bed. "Cass, are you ok?"

"No."

"What do y…"

Cass interrupted. "But I will be." He looked directly at Dean, then at Sam and Bobby who had appeared at the sound of voices. "Thank you."

Cass started to sit up, but sank back down with a sigh and a moan "I think I will just lie here a bit longer".

"Damn right you will." Bobby muttered. "I'm not going through that again in a hurry."

"Going through what?" Cass asked, curiously.

When he was told, Cass asked to see the paper with the writing and symbols on it. His eyes showed immediate understanding, and he said simply "I was lucky". He looked up and explained "sometimes an injury is so bad the instinctive need to flee takes over. I think you would call it a sort of sleep-walking. It's highly dangerous for the angel concerned. This," Cass indicated the ritual laid out on the paper "tethers the angel's subconscious, which prevents the angel leaving its physical location." He looked at Bobby. "Only an angel would know to put this together. I wonder where you got it".

Cass continued to look at the paper thoughtfully, rechecking the writing and the symbols. It was all in Bobby's writing but assuming it had been dictated to him by someone else, there might be a signature of sorts. He found it then. A small symbol that wasn't relevant, and didn't fit, and he smiled, but didn't share.

A few hours later, no one was surprised when Cass disappeared, but at least this time it was from his own choice. He wasn't fully recovered but enough to carry on with his task of finding God.

Cass appeared on the bed, and no one was around at first, but Cass didn't know that because he was unconscious and unaware.

When Bobby came in from the kitchen a few minutes later, balancing a mug of tea in his hand as he tried to wheel one-handed through the house, he was startled, but not surprised, when he saw Cass, in Dean's T-shirt and sweatpants, with no socks and shoes, lying on his bed.

He'd been waiting for this, hadn't known exactly when it would be. He had everything ready. Lifted Cass's T-shirt and changed his dressing, wrapped him in blankets to keep him warm and folded a piece of A4 paper covered in scribbles into his hand.

Cass hadn't really been sure of the timing either so wasn't able to be around, but that would have just been weird, right? Turning up to watch another you.

But Cass had turned up to thank Gabriel, when Gabriel had given Bobby the ritual he needed to help Cass survive. Gabriel had been off-hand but Bobby could tell he'd appreciated it.

When the Cass on the bed disappeared, Bobby was happy to draw a line under the whole event because to be honest. It was just too damn weird.


End file.
